By Tim Schenck
What does God look like? This question gets asked a lot at our house and I never have a very good answer. I tend to mutter something about us being made in God’s image. And then, once the boys have expressed adequate annoyance at my unsatisfying answer, what follows is a steady stream of more probing questions about God’s appearance. They’re relentless – like sharks who’ve smelled blood. “How tall is God? Does God have a face? How big are God’s hands? Does God have really big shoes?” On and on they come, making me feel less and less adequate as a parent and as a member of the clergy. Because my answers can’t possibly be complete.
Sometimes I turn the question around and ask, “What do you think God looks like?” This is a classic counseling technique, redirecting the unanswerable into a question. And, while I’m never too proud to use it on my kids, it doesn’t work. Often I end up in the land of generalities by stating that God is everywhere. Which is true but not exactly the most concrete answer. I think this response in particular, the one about God being everywhere, leads to the obsession with God’s size. If God is everywhere, the next logical question may well be to wonder about the immense size of God’s shoes.
The fact is we don’t know what God looks like. We haven’t a clue. Scripture certainly gives us lots of images of God. But I can’t really tell the boys that God is a rock or a whirlwind or fire. We’re told that we’re made in the image of God but that doesn’t really help us too much. Is that literal or metaphorical? And getting into an existential debate with a four-year old is a road to nowhere. Believe me, I’ve tried.
But ultimately, does it matter what God looks like? For humans, seeing is often believing. And so, for many, that’s the end of the conversation. “If I can’t see something, I can’t believe in it. End of story.” It’s “Doubting” Thomas without the chance to touch Jesus’ wounds and believe. To know what something or someone looks like is a way to gain control or power over that thing. If we can visualize something, then we can describe it with our own words. And if we can see it and name it, we somehow own it. But of course God is too great to be contained by human sight or language. So we can never fully see God or describe God in totality. And we certainly can’t own God.
We can, however, experience God. And this happens in all sorts of ways. We can experience God through the compassion and love of others. We can experience God through the majesty of nature. We can experience God simply by wondering alongside a child about God’s appearance.
When I was a little boy my family had a children’s Bible. I have no idea where it is at this point; I haven’t seen it in years. But I vividly remember the inside-cover. It had an illustration of a brilliant, multi-colored star stretching over the entire length of the page. My parents, probably out of desperation or exasperation from the unceasing questions, suggested that maybe that was God. And the image has stuck with me throughout my life. Not as the definitive image of what God looks like but as one possibility. Somehow it beats George Burns.
As I’m faced with question after question about what God looks like, I find myself answering “yes” to most of these questions. Is God tall? Yes, and short too. Does God have big shoes? Yes, and small ones too. Because the fullness of God is the ultimate “yes.” If God is in everything, then God is both tall and short, big and small and every size in-between. God has a face and yet God does not have a face. God is a tree or a flower or a star and yet God is so much more than any of these.
John’s gospel tells us simply that “God is love.” It’s a straightforward statement, a three word sentence. “God is love.” And maybe that’s what God looks like: love. It may be an elderly couple holding hands, a mother cradling her child, the sharing of tears with a grieving friend. Love comes in many forms and appears in many faces. And so does God.
For Christians, the most tangible face of God is, of course, Jesus himself. In the face of Jesus we see God. If God is love, Jesus personifies that love. His face is the very face of God because it is the very face of love. And so whenever we serve the poor, feed the hungry, or clothe the naked we not only share God’s love, we see it.
But of course, none of this provides the most tangible answer for a child wanting to know if God is tall. So I keep saying “yes” to the onslaught of questions and I do what I can to be a loving father. For if God is love, then we see God by showing our love for others. We see the face of God in one another. Our faces can reflect the love that is God. You and I can look like God, if only occasionally, if only briefly, if only haltingly. But we have the ability to do this precisely because we are made in God’s image.
I’m not sure what size sandals Jesus wore. A ten? An eleven wide? I assume no one ever measured his “footprints in the sand.” But it probably doesn’t matter. Because there’s a wideness in experiencing God’s all-encompassing love and mercy.
From What Size Are God’s Shoes, copyright Timothy Schenck 2008, and used by permission of Church Publishing. The Rev. Tim Schenck, rector of All Saints, Briarcliff Manor, New York, blogs at Clergy Family Confidential.